We all have a default mode for dealing with conflict. Some people use the “my way or the highway” approach. Others are passive-aggressive. Others stuff their point of view down like a philly cheesesteak, and what comes back up when they get a overstuffed ain’t pretty.

It called to mind something that happened in my career several years ago. I was at a management retreat in a breakout session. We were providing input to HR about what we wanted to see updated in the performance management policy. The reason for the discussion stemmed from a very acrimonious forced ranking process the year before. At the end of the day, managers were furious with each other, the employees were furious at management, and no one, including H,R had the energy for a repeat.

So, I’d been in the job about 2 months, and my intention was to sit back and listen. Now, for the record, my default conflict tools are Accommodating and Avoiding (believe it or not, my way or the highway is not my default). However, step on my values and I squeal.

Iago, a mid-level executive, believed that the issue wasn’t the process, it was being so transparent about it. The gist was that we shouldn’t tell our staff about what constitutes good performance or the process around how we determine a performance rating, so then we wouldn’t be on the firing line when exceptional employees didn’t get the rating and raise they expected.

As you might guess, I am wholeheartedly opposed to lying to people about that which directly affects them. I am also opposed to sham processes. Frankly, this wasn’t performance management, it was salary management, and why bother pretending otherwise.

My real issue is something larger. As I was voicing my outrage, I realized that save the HR generalist, the rest of the room agreed that lying to avoid having the difficult conversation was perfectly fine with them. That’s a whole company full of weak leaders.

This is not a good leadership practice. It destroys trust. It reduces engagement. It increases employees dissatisfaction, and then people spend their energies in angst, worry, anger, gossip, and perhaps anti-social behavior instead of working together to produce a result. It’s bad for business and at some point, job karma says it will be bad for your career. It’s weak, and it’s beneath you.

If you find yourself tempted to lie instead of having that conversation, it’s time to woman (or man) up and be a leader that people want to follow.

If you don’t have the skills and/or the emotional fortitude to have difficult conversations in an empathetic, meaningful way, it’s your responsibility as a leader to close that gap. Mentors, leaders you admire, and coaches can help you with this.

We can’t create inspired workplaces by avoiding responsibility and lying. We do it by becoming great leaders and inspiring our tribe to be better.

Be Your Best You Today,
Carolann Jacobs

Photo by Wendell

Team,

Here’s an excerpt from “Breakthrough Leadership”  by Wayne Baker at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business.  As you read it, I encourage you to think about how you can create this for the people who work with and for you.

“Extraordinary events–positive or negative–are temporary openings for breakthroughs in personal growth, organizational development, and human progress. Breakthrough leaders seize these moments to explore a world of new possibilities for themselves, for their organizations, for society.

1. People need to believe. The primary motivation in life is the search for meaning and purpose. Humans have a will to meaning. Human beings, says Charlotte Bühler, live “with intentionality, which means living with purpose. The purpose is to give meaning to life…” We cannot live without beliefs.
2. People need to belong. The need to belong is a potent human force that finds expression in personal relationships, work relationships, community involvement, participation in voluntary associations, national pride, patriotism, tribal loyalties and religious allegiances. “Social needs” are powerful motivators-needs “for belonging, for association, for acceptance by one’s fellows, for giving and receiving friendship and love.” The need to belong is hard-wired. Indeed, the human brain has a specialized organic ability to perceive social events and human interactions. Belonging has measurable positive effects on subjective well-being, mental and physical health, and the body’s biochemistry.
3. People need to contribute. The reciprocity principle-the obligation to give, the obligation to receive and the obligation to repay-is universal. It is a principal component of all moral codes. The principle is so fundamental that it defines humanity. The need to contribute to others and to accept contributions from others is hard-wired into us as a species.
4. People seek transcendence. Why do bad (or good) things happen? The need for answers may be especially acute in the face of disaster, but transcendence above the trials and travails of life is an eternal and universal quest. Every culture grapples with the big questions: Why are we here? Where do we come from? Where are we going? The quest for transcendence takes many forms-science, religion, spirituality, philosophy, space exploration, devotion to callings and careers, the inner journey of self-realization, etc. Transcendence is possible in any circumstance. Victims of calamities, disasters or life-threatening events transcend the suffering and sorrow of their experiences by construing meaning in them, using their experiences to enrich their lives and the lives of others. With a higher purpose in life, a person can survive and rise above almost anything.
5. Leaders and institutions (organizations, governments, family, religion, etc.) facilitate or deny the human needs to believe, belong, contribute and seek transcendence. Leaders and institutions facilitate by creating the space, opportunity and resources for the expression of belief, belonging, contribution and transcendence; they deny these by limiting, suppressing or opposing their expression.”

One of the challenges I hear most often is that no one has any time to stop and reflect anymore.  And, while I understand time pressures as well as anyone, we can all choose to stop and reflect at any time.  I think that is the key to purposeful, mindful leadership and management.  Make the decision to respond instead of react.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

Photo by j. cliss

A long time ago, far, far away, I was sitting in my SVP’s office having a one on one.  I suppose his leadership coach told him that’s what he needed to do to connect with the up-and-coming leaders, or whatever they wanted to call those of us who were on the fast track.

My supposition was based on his body language – disinterested and distracted.  That also could have been that he was overbooked.  His administrative assistant had rescheduled our meeting four times, and this one seemed doomed to her constant interruption.

We talked in a vague sort of way about the opportunities for promotion and various career paths in between his admin calling or poking her head in for this and that.

For my part, I wasn’t all that interested in this conversation myself.  There was a part of me that was flattered to have this visibility, but what exactly was this man going to remember out of our conversation.  He was barely there…always something more important to do.

Now, I get a little irreverent when I’m bored.  And, I was not only bored, but SVP-or-not, I was getting a little tired of sitting directly in front of him at his request only to be the least important thing on his agenda.

So, I asked, “When you graduated from college and imagined what your career would look like, did you think that you’d be spending your day doing this?”

Ha!  Now that got his full attention.

He responded, “What do you mean?”

I said something along the lines of, “Look at your calendar.  You have back to back meetings, sometimes triple booked.  You can’t go five minutes without an interruption.  What is there to that needs to be discussed that much?  Look, from where I sit you all have all of these meetings.  We see you in the conference room.  But, at the end of the day, there’s no clear agenda, so the rest of us continue on doing what we’re doing… what we think is important.  Is this what you imagined?”

Silence.

And now, folks, here is what should have been my career-ending statement: “I wouldn’t want your job.  The meeting schedule alone would make me want to slit my wrists.”

What naive, not very political, Young Carolann didn’t understand at the time is there are ways to say things and ways to say things.

This could have been the beginning of a real honest dialog about leadership, about creating the kinds of opportunities that people would actually want (as opposed to the title and the power), about what value their leadership team was adding.  This could have been a study in how communications were perceived as they filtered through the organizations.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t think he envisioned his life as a string of meetings trying to endlessly get buy-in on every idea.  This conversation could have been anything.

It wasn’t.

On the email the SVP sent back to my manager was the phrase “Astounding lack of maturity.”

Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

It was probably the only honest feedback he’d heard that week.

Today, it would be different.  One of the things I do and teach my clients to do is to give feedback in a way that the recipient can hear it and do something with it.

But it does beg the question – do subterfuge, couching your meaning, and doublespeak (my favorite being “i don’t disagree with you” because heaven forbid one goes out on a limb and actually agrees with someone else) equal leadership maturity?

What do you think?

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – As leaders get busier, they have less opportunity or maybe miss opportunities to demonstrate great leadership skills.  Who do you want to be as a leader?  How do you want people to see you?  How do you think people see you?  Are you leaving the legacy that you want to leave.  If the answer to that last question is no, I invite you visit Improve Performance NOW! If not now, when?

Cat Fight Photo by Kevin Steele

Recapping parts 1-3…

Janice* runs the governance group for her company, and Rhonda* works for Janice in that group.  Over the course of time, Janice has developed a healthty distrust of Rhonda, although she’s never addressed it directly with Rhonda.  Anyone with two eyes and half an ear can observe that something isn’t right in that relationship.  Rhonda doesn’t really understand why Janice doesn’t like her, but she’s never engaged in that conversation, either.  Rhonda thinks she’s done her job well and doesn’t understand why she can “do no right” by Janice.  The last conversation started with Janice saying to Rhonda, “You always try to sabotage me”  and ended with two angry people who both think they are right.

How this could have gone differently….

Either one of these folks could have initiated a conversation a long time ago when they noticed the relationship going south.  Instead, each made up assumptions about the other and used them as excuses not to have the conversation (because there was no point, right?)

The other point to consider is whether either of them knows how to have this kind of conversation without making it worse.  How many of these have you had with a spouse or a colleage or a boss when it didn’t go the way you wanted it to?

Here’s what we all have to understand before we go into these types of discussions:

• The other person has a point of view that he/she thinks is valid.   Listening to it and trying to understand it does not mean that we have to give up our own point of view.
• No one wants to lose face.  The other person is in just as much danger of that happening as you are.
• No one likes to be accused of something, especially when it flies in the face of a closely held value.  For instance, Rhonda believes that she operates with integrity, which to her means that she doesn’t have a hidden agenda.  Janice accusing her of sabotage was a threat to Rhonda’s vision of herself and how she wants others to perceive her. And, it was an accusation to defend.
• Bullying someone into our point of view works in the short term, but it can irrevocably damage the relationship in the long term.  Why do that when there is a better way?

What’s the better way?  Change the purpose for having the conversation from making Rhonda see the error of her ways to making sure that each person understands where the other person is coming from.

I can hear the groans from some of you already.  Why bother, when all we really want is what we want?  Besides, Janice is the manager, and it should be her call, right?  My question back is would you rather be right or would you rather create a strong foundation from which to work, so that when disagreements happen, the entire relationship or project doesn’t get derailed?  Most people would choose the latter.

So, how do we do it?

We prepare.  We start thinking like an objective observer.  What could the other person’s story be?  If I were a consultant, what would I think about these two people? What if I don’t know everything I need to know.  Curiosity…That’s where we start the conversation.

Janice:  Rhonda, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s been going on between us regarding the implementation of the governance process.  I’ve found the last few months to be frustrating and upsetting, and I suspect that you have, too.  What’s more troubling to me is that I think it has affected our ability to work together as well as we could.  I was wondering if you’d be up for talking about that?  I’d like to understand better what’s going on for you, how you feel about it, and then I’d like to share what’s been going on for me.

Let’s look at the parts.

Janice starts with telling Rhonda that this is important to her, because she’s been thinking about it a long time.  She acknowledges her own feelings as well as Rhonda’s. She mentions her concerns, and then, she ASKS FOR PERMISSION to have the conversation.  Important, because many conversations between people of unequal rank in the organization feel forced when you’re the one who’s lower on the totem pole.  Notice also that Janice’s stated purpose is understanding, not making Rhonda wrong.

That’s a lot better than, “You always try to undermine me.”  Yes?

Where Janice and Rhonda might need a coach is in the continuation of this conversation.  There is a skill an structure to taking these kinds of conversations out to the end in a productive, constructive way.  It’s very likely that Rhonda has her own habits and patterns that get in the way of her hearing what Janice is saying.

When intentions are good all around, these difficult conversations are the crux of conflict among individuals and groups.  Having an understanding of brain science and emotional intelligence empowers leaders to be more effective, more collaborative and this more productive.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – Improve Performance NOW! helps leaders make these kinds of postive, effective conversations habit.  We provide frameworks for learning, role plays and practice, support and challenges to help our clients be their best selves.  If you’re interested in learning more about this program can benefit you or your group, register for an upcoming preview call today.

The world lost a brilliant mind and an Inimitable Leader when Randy Pausch in July 2008.  He was an example of someone who was a leader in life and a leader in work.  Integrated.  Authentic.  Someone who cared about other people.

What spoke to me about The Last Lecture, is that I personally want to emulate the person whom he wrote about, and I want my company, Vivid Epiphany, to create the kinds of leaders whom he wrote about.

My takeaways:

• Live as many of your dreams as you can
• Enabled others to live their dream
• Create the legacy that you’d like to leave
• When you can’t pay someone back, pay someone forward

I loved this book.  My leadership programs going forward will be inspired by this book.  I invite you to read it for yourself, and let me know in the comments below what your takeaways are.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – The overarching theme of my new program “Improve Performance NOW!” is facilitating better thinking in others so that they can be their best selves.  Wouldn’t you like to be the catalyst for someone else’s greatness?  For information about upcoming free preview calls to introduce you to the program, please click here.

My friend, Dean Lindsay, Progress Agent, public speaker and author of Cracking the Networking Code offers advice about how you can create your own curb appeal on his blog. I recommend a look.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – We have one final “Discover the Top 3 Mistakes that Job Seekers Make and How to Avoid Them” preview call before the next Replacement For Outplacement Bootcamp starts.  Curb appeal is important for any job seeker, and I invite you to register today.

Photo by Martin Heigin

For smaller companies, this is a great time to attract fantastic talent.  There are many experienced, accomplished people on the job market right now, and many of them are looking for opportunities where they can contribute and create exponential growth.  The challenge for many leaders who come from larger companies is that there seems to be a bias against them based on myths that started with people who’ve never worked in a Fortune 500 organization.  Today, we’re going to explore the three most common myths and how to address them.

Myth 1: Leaders from Larger Companies Don’t Want to “Roll Up Their Sleeves” and Do “Real Work”

One advantage of having someone who was successful in a large organization is that by-and-large, they know what delegation is and how to do it.  They delegate based on what will grow their staffs, as opposed to “dumping” which is assigning that which is unpleasant in the name of providing an opportunity.

The other reality is that large companies have become much flatter.  Many leaders have found that they fulfill many roles.  Leaders who are looking for opportunities in smaller organizations can emphasize where they are hands on.

The key for the small company is to identify the signature strengths needed for their next leader to be successful and then look for those in the individual.  They also need to be very aware of the individual’s Emotional Intelligence.  One myth that doesn’t come up in conversation as often with small businesses looking to hire talent from larger companies but is actually grounded in more fact is that larger organizations can accomodate and tolerate jerks.

Myth 2:  We Don’t Have the Administrative Support That Large Company Leaders Are Used To.

Leaders, this is something that may not come up in your interview, so your best bet is to weave it into the conversation.  If you had to do your own expense reporting, mention it.  If you had to do your own shopping for office supplies, you can say that while it wasn’t the best use of your time, you didn’t mind doing it.

Believe it or not, small Companies usually have more administrative support than larger companies do these days.  It isn’t uncommon in a larger company to have one administrative assistant for an entire office floor or more.  Frankly, if you’re working in one of these companies, you’re lucky if you can find someone to order you a new pencil.  At this point, most people would just welcome the opportunity to do whatever it is that they need to do without having to jump through hoops to get it done or get it reimbursed.  What used to be a negative for small companies is now a positive.

Myth 3:  Leaders From Large Companies Can’t Adapt To the Rapid Pace of Change

This one is almost laughable.  Leaders from large companies are doing nothing if not adapting all the time.  The question to ask is how many reorganizations they’ve seen in the last two years, and you’ll have your answer.

What to market and what to look for is the desire to get important things accomplished.  One of the attractions of a smaller company is that there is almost always a better opportunity of success because there are fewer personal agendas.  There’s less bureaucracy, and fewer egos to stroke.

A Warning

Smaller companies typically have smaller budgets, especially expense budgets.  If one is lucky enough to work in a larger company that still allows her to travel first class, have her airport lounge membership, and stay at top tier hotels, and one attached to these things, a smaller company probably isn’t for her.

Smaller companies also expect that everyone can operate basic office software like Word and Excel.

Leaders who are willing to be flexible about their benefits and who thrive on achievement are great fits for smaller organizations.  The key is finding someone who didn’t quite fit the large company mold, but could still get things done.  The key for the leader is to promote their achievements, not simply their involvement.

Be You Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – Be on the lookout for more valuable posts more often.  I’ve been taking a break, mainly because of technical difficulty on the site.

p.p.s. – Vivid Epiphany is launching “Improve Performance NOW!” later on this summer.  The main benefit of this program is to help leaders “manage” less and see exponentially greater results.  If this is something that interests you, please visit the website.  There you can sign up to receive information about the preview calls when they are scheduled.

Photo by lepiaf.geo

It’s rare that good ideas from popular culture make it into the board room.  For some reason, they seem un-businesslike, maybe sometimes a little “woo-woo.”

Reading from my January 2009 Fastcompany (yes, very behind), I noticed some quotes from the CEO of Cisco, John Chambers.  “Focus on what we can influence, and not over- or under-react to things we cannot.  It’s a question of living in the world as it is, not the way we want it to be.”

How’s that for a page out of Eckhart Tolle?  That, Inimitable Leaders, is the Power of Now.

It makes me want to call my friends over at Cisco to see whether that philosophy has trickled down.

So, back to us….

How much time in your business day do you spend dwelling on or trying to solve problems that are not in your sphere of influence to solve?

The smartest question a leader can ask is, what are the possibilities?  If there really aren’t any possibilities or we’re just making stuff up to appease someone else, perhaps our time is better served elsewhere.

How much time in your personal life is spent dwelling on things you have no control over?

I’m a champion at mulling and dwelling, so I understand.  Still, complaining is railing against that which is.  Stewing about it is a waste of time and an indulgence that we can’t afford.

Love It, Lead It or Leave It.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – Living in the Now is especially important in times of stress.  Most of our angst we cause for ourselves by worrying about a future that may never happen.  It makes us feel out of control and helpless, which sabotages our confidence, and can paralyze us to taking the very action that would get us out of this rut.  This is a fundamental of my program for job seekers, “Replacement For Outplacement Bootcamp.”  If you know someone who could benefit from a daily dose of positive reality and could use a plan for success, please forward them this link:  http://www.replacementforoutplacement.com.  The May program still has spaces left.

Photo by Alec Brock

How does this [conversation, activity, report, spreadsheet, meeting, etc.] add value?

I could end this article right here, and you’d all get it.  The challenge is that as companies get larger, this question becomes taboo.  If your boss asks you to take that column out of the spreadsheet and re-sort the group in alphabetical order of requestor rather than line of business, what are you going to do?  Chances are, even if you know there’s no good reason to do it, you’re going to grumble under your breath and waste the time.

This week, a friend of mine told me about an email string that went around her team arguing about the merits and non-merits of capitalizing the letters in the business request on the reports.  The group couldn’t agree, so a meeting was scheduled.

I asked whether there was something that was case sensitive that was prohibiting them from getting the information they needed.  No.

Was there a report that was customer-facing?  No.

I asked her whether anyone had thought to ask what value this added to the product they were producing.  She replied that she was sure everyone was thinking that, because this was petty and stupid even for them, but that no one wanted to call their manager out on it.

I’m of the view that this didn’t require a “calling out,” but I do understand.  She works in a corporate culture in which they have spent millions on site licenses and even more in training dollars and time on a software product that creates work for many and provides no information, but because their VP was the person who brought it in, no one will bring it up.

So, what do you do when you work with a herd of elephants in the room?

Start small.  Look at what you’re donig in your day and get rid of the non-value-added stuff that you have control over.

When you get to the stuff that others need for you to do, be curious, not accusatory.  Ask, “How does this thing that I do contribute?”  On the occasion that someone feels defensive anyway, reassure them.  The point is, it doesn’t have to be a confrontation.  People might surprise you.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

p.s. – Dealing with the elephants in the room can be very difficult when you’re stuck in the cage with them.  This is where hiring an outside consultant or a coach can be ideal because there are times that it is easier for managers to hear a message when it comes from someone who isn’t in the day to day mix.  If you think your group spends too much time doing things that don’t save money or make money, let’s set up a complimentary consultation to see whether coaching might be an effective way for your group to be more productive.

Photo by sookie

When your company is trying to implement something different, what phrases do you hear uttered in hushed tones (and sometimes not so hushed tones) in the break room and around the smoking area?

Anything like this?  “It will never work.”  “Here we go again.”  “We’ve never gotten this right.”  “This is stupid.”

The not-so-subtle underlying message is “So why try?”

You may even have a group with a more cynical view.  This is the group that deliberately stonewalls, won’t go to training, won’t pay attention at training, continues to no perform because they know that if they don’t perform long enough, the executive team will give the project up as a failed initiative.  In these organizations, there usually isn’t much consequence to undermining the effort, so there isnt’ an incentive not to.  Often, there is more incentive to impede than there is to perform (e.g. potential job loss).

As a leader, you have to understand that this isn’t just self-fulfilling prophecy or Law of Attraction at work.  These people are giving themselves the permission to fail, and this sabotages whatever effort your trying to make, right from the get go.  It tells you that your organization is not set up for making radical change.  This is not to be ignored.  Leaders do so at their own peril.

People didn’t arrive here overnight. The inability to adapt comes from failure experiences reinforced.  Think about the methodology implementation that fell over on its side as soon as the executive sponsor quit.  Think of the large software implementation that no one had enough training to pull of successfully.

Change is generally a double negative at work.  There is the act of the change, which we already know the brain resists at a fundamental level.   And then, there is the failure to make the change which reinforces the idea that the group “can’t” handle change successfully.

One way to overcome this is to fire their sorry, negative carcasses and start fresh.  Just kidding… although if Debbie Downer has set up residence on your team and won’t knock it off, a graceful, dignified exit shouldn’t be out of the question.  She’s causing other problems, trust me.

A better way to overcome this is to implement change more slowly or implement smaller more subtle shifts.  Give the group the experience of succeeding at change.

Set the groundwork for the change.  Use your coaching skills to help your team think it through so that they can come to the conclusion for themselves that the change is beneficial.  That’s how people own it.

What if the change isn’t beneficial for them?  Well, why would they willingly participate in something that they know isn’t in their best interests?  That’s the answer you’ll have to find.

There are innumerable books and studies that tell us change is hard.  What most of them miss is that repeating failure means training the brain for failure.  Inimitable Leaders™ develop their teams for success.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann